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"Thin-Film" Batteries May Reduce Fire Danger

Recent Laptop Recalls Energize Battery Research

By Joseph S. Enoch
ConsumerAffairs.com

September 8, 2006
A new, safer battery technology called thin-film, may be replacing the somewhat volatile lithium-ion battery. The recent Dell, Apple and Panasonic recalls of almost 6 million laptop batteries has had a catalytic affect on thin-film battery research.

Thin-film batteries have a solid lithium core compared to the liquid core of the lithium-ion batteries. That solid core makes them less vulnerable to overheating and they can be fully discharged and recharged well more than 10,000 times.

"In comparison, a typical Li-ion battery can only be cycled about 300-500 times without significant degradation in capacity," Infinite Power Solutions spokesman, Tim Bradow wrote in an e-mail.

Infinite Power Solutions (IPS), a battery company in Golden, Colo. announced yesterday that it has received $34.7 million in investments from private firms that will allow the company to begin production of thin-film batteries next year.

"This new capital will enable us to scale our technology, build state-of-the-art fabs, and ramp to high volume production," Raymond Johnson, president and CEO of IPS said in a prepared statement.

Lithium-ion batteries can generate a tremendous amount of heat while charging and can occasionally burst into flames under the right conditions. ConsumerAffairs.com reported on how the batteries in Dell laptops possibly caught a man's truck on fire and even burned another man's house down. Even the lithium-ion batteries in cell phones are suspect to overheating and fire. Thin-film batteries do not pose a fire hazard.

"Because they have a solid-state electrolyte, they will not freeze or boil," wrote Bradow. "Therefore, they continue to work at very cold temps (-50C) and will not rupture or explode at very high temps (>200C). They are fabricated in a vacuum environment, so they will not outgas in a high temp environment. They will not burn. In fact, even under a direct short circuit condition, the temperature of single cell only increases 1°C. Therefore, it is impossible to over heat and start a fire."

"There is not one piece of consumer or enterprise technology that can run on thin-film battery technology," Carmi Levy, senior research analyst with Infotech Research Group in London, Ontario told The New York Times. "Every piece of circuitry must be fully re-engineered. It is a Herculean engineering feat to switch over to this."

As a result, the thin-film industry is focusing on enterprise technology markets to begin with such as radio-frequency identity (RFID) tags, smart cards, military equipment, surgical devices such as pacemakers and temperature and pressure gauges in car tires.

"It will take time to ramp production and license our technology to others for high volume manufacturing," wrote Bradow.

Thin-film batteries are extremely versatile. They can be smaller than a postage stamp and about twice its thickness, can be manufactured in various shapes and can be attached directly to a microchip.

The batteries can also have a long charge life. After being charged they can go into a standby mode for months without leaking any power. That long life would be useful for many applications including implanted surgical devices and missiles that are stored in silos for years without any activity.

"The end user will not see the battery, nor will they need to because it never needs replacement, only recharging," wrote Bradow.

Susan Eustis, president of WinterGreen Research in Lexington, Mass. has high hopes for the technology. She told the Times that with increasing cell phone sales and uses for RFID tags, the market for thin-film battery sales should approach 10 billion units by 2012.

Sony, Apple and Dell did not return phone calls for comment.

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